Student Grant left stranded in sports quiz blunder

It has emerged Minister for Sport Helen Grant made her extraordinary PR gaffe — failing to answer correctly five easy sports trivia questions — when she was without her usual media minders.

The Grant own goal, which has undone a lot of the good impression she has made since succeeding Hugh Robertson two months ago, is all the more remarkable because of government sensitivities around such an ambush.

Department spin doctors have made sure sports ministers have gone nowhere near being exposed to a sports quiz since the in-coming Richard Caborn was so embarrassed by Clare Balding in similar fashion on BBC Radio 5 Live 12 years ago.

VIDEO: Scroll down to watch Grant's gaffe

Gaffe: Minister for Sport Helen Grant got five sport questions of five wrong in a straightforward quiz

However, Grant had no back-up when she was interviewed by local TV station Meridian after she switched on the new floodlights of Maidstone Hockey Club in her constituency last Saturday night.

The DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) don’t accompany the minister when she is doing her Kent constituency work.

But Grant did have Sally Munday, the chief executive of England Hockey, with her at the Maidstone grassroots event. Neither Munday nor local Tory agents came to Grant’s rescue over the name of the current Wimbledon ladies champion or the 2013 FA Cup winners.

All alone: Grant was without her media minders for the interview

England batsman Nick Compton, who was unlucky to miss out on the Ashes squad — especially with his adept playing of fast bowling — is still going though a rigorous training schedule with cricket mentor Neil Burns in order to be ready if he gets a belated call-up.

This includes a swimming programme devised by GB Olympic competitor Ed Sinclair.

Still hope: Nick Compton is banking on a belated call-up to England's Ashes line-up

Ony the BBC, funded by licence-fee payers, could allow the sheer indulgence of cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew and wife Emma embarking on a three-day rail journey on the Ghan train down Australia from Darwin to Adelaide.

This while the Ashes conflict is at fever pitch following England’s harrowing defeat in Brisbane, sledging and Jonathan Trott going home with stress-related issues.

Brand Agnew are hardly keeping quiet about their holiday, charting the journey via Jonathan’s tweets and Emma’s daily blog on the Agnew website.

Top man: Jonathan Agnew has taken a three-day holiday between Tests in Australia

They say the company learned lessons from the Olympic fiasco and that their Commonwealth Games ticket process is running smoothly

World Cup seat shuffle

The RFU debenture holders have renewal contracts which give them rights to buy World Cup tickets for Twickenham games from the RFU. But the seats they get will be behind the posts rather than in their usual prime, halfway-line positions.

And they won’t be able to enjoy their traditional car-boot food and drinks in the West car park, either.

This area is being used for a grand, three-storey official hospitality venue and a media centre.

The compensation the RFU have had to pay the IRB for acquiring 5,000 World Cup seats for Twickenham matches to placate the debenture holders is understood to be around £3m in cash and kind.

SPOTY banking on Murray

BBC Sports Personality organisers are still working on the basis of sure-fire winner Andy Murray returning from his Miami training base for the December 15 show in Leeds.

However, friends of the Wimbledon champion have their doubts he will want to interrupt his schedule. If the Murray ceremony has to occur via live video link, the BBC will have second thoughts about inviting Miami resident Lennox Lewis to present the trophy again.

Lennox gave Murray his third-place
award last year but the former heavyweight world champion boxer missed
his cue, leaving Murray to pick it up himself.

Nailed on? Andy Murray is a hot favourite to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award